McHENRY – McHenry started off against Marian Central as if someone spiked the water cooler with Red Bull.

The Warriors swarmed over Marian on defense, then ran like a 4x100-meter relay team after they took the ball away.

“We just got into them,” McHenry forward Damian Zalewski said. “It’s a big rivalry game, and we wanted to beat them bad.”

The Warriors scored the first 13 points of the game and never suffered any lulls as they blew out the Hurricanes, 71-48, Thursday night in a nonconference boys basketball game at McHenry’s West Campus.

Guard Shane Varvil led McHenry (2-3) with 23 points and Zalewski added 19, the last two of which were his first varsity dunk in the fourth quarter that capped the Warriors’ scoring.

“This is a game that’s always circled on the calendar,” Varvil said. “It’s always a rivalry game. We don’t like them at all. We’ve played against a lot of them since grade school in our feeder programs. We got out and were running the floor and we feel like when we do that we can beat anybody in the area.”

The Warriors shot 47.2 percent from the field (26 of 55) in large part because they got so many fast-break baskets. Guard Korey Partenheimer added 14 points to join Varvil and Zalewski in double figures.

“The defense was really good tonight,” McHenry coach Tim Paddock said. “We extended our half-court defense. It was really enjoyable to watch. Lake Park did that to us last week [a 57-33 loss] with their defense, it was really enjoyable to watch.”

Marian did not score until the final minute of the first quarter on Matt Yuk’s layup. The Hurricanes were 1 of 11 with 10 turnovers in the first quarter.

“It was amazing,” Zalewski said. “It was all you could ask for.”

The Hurricanes had 16 turnovers in the first half and finished with 26.

“We don’t take care of the basketball,” Hurricanes coach Curtis Price said. “We don’t go to meet the pass, we have soft hands when we catch the ball. We’re really in a funk we have to work our way of. We can’t seem to solve it.”